New year’s resolutions can be instructive, important, even valuable—but they should be fun, too. While taking a moment to evaluate your habits and make changes is vital, so is stoking your sense of exploration. Our world sometimes seems to be growing smaller, but it is in fact bigger than ever, full of hundreds of millions of people who are making music in fascinating, life-giving ways.

If you’re curious about what is out there, try to broaden your horizons in the new year by setting some resolutions around music. Here are 20 suggestions to get you started on your journey. You might be surprised by what you end up liking.

Let us know about any new discoveries—whether new music to love or new ways of understanding your relation to music—throughout the year using #laphilnyres. 

20 Suggestions to Make this Next Year Your Most Musical Year Yet:

1. Listen to an album or composition that was not released by a major record label (You can start by browsing on Bandcamp).  

2. Buy a physical copy of an album you haven’t heard in at least five years. Play it on a home stereo. Notice what it makes you think about and how it makes you feel. 

3. Go a week without using a streaming service. Where do you get your music from? Does your relationship to the music feel any different? 

4. Listen to a piece of music that was composed in the 1600s or earlier. What does it bring to mind? What does it sound like? 

5. Listen to a piece of music that was composed, performed, and recorded by one person on a computer. What does it bring to mind? What does it sound like? 

6. Listen to a piece of classical music by an African composer performed by African musicians. 

7. Think of an artist or piece of music you typically dislike. Listen to them. Consider what it is about the music that turns you off.  

8. Is there an artist or composer whose music you’ve never heard but are intrigued by? Before you listen, consider what it is about them that intrigues you. What have you heard about them? What do you believe they sound like? Once you’ve listened, how closely did your assumptions line up with what you heard? 

9. Ask someone you’re close to what their favorite album or longform composition is. Listen to it together. Ask them to point out their favorite moments. 

10. Pick a week two months in the future and listen to the No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US that week. What do you think about it? How does it make you feel? What does it make you think about other music listeners? 

11. Find a piece of music by someone who comes from a background diametrically opposed to your own. What does their music sound like to you?  

12. Is there a piece of music or type of music you’ve always found boring? Listen to it with an open mind. At what point do you notice your attention slipping? What’s happening in the music?  

13. What was your favorite piece of music when you were 16 years old? When you listen to it now, try to determine whether your feelings are about the music itself or about your memory of listening to it. Now, listen to your current favorite piece of music. Consider how a future version of you might look back at this piece and how it will make the future you feel. 

14. Listen to a piece of music you’ve always found loud, noisy, and grating. Can you tell what the music is trying to do? Do you think it’s succeeding? What might the appeal of this music be? 

15. Listen to a piece of music you’ve always found offensive. What does the music sound like it’s trying to do? What might its goals be, if not simply to shock? 

16. Listen to an Indian raga or Indonesian gamelan orchestra at a reasonably loud volume. Notice the grains of texture and rhythm, as well as the complexity of the melody.

17. Think of a genre or form you don’t know much about and find one of the most well-loved pieces from that genre. Listen to it and see if you can determine on your own what makes it exceptional.  

18. For one week, don’t listen to the same artist, album, or playlist twice. If you’re really bold, go an entire month without listening to the same album twice. (Does listening to half an album count? Do collaborations? That’s up to you!) 

19. Listen to the piece that won the Pulitzer Prize for Music the year you were born (if the prize wasn’t awarded that year, choose another monumental year in your life). Consider what the music’s emotions or ideas might say about what it felt like to be conscious in that year.  

20. As you pursue these resolutions, as well as your own explorations, try to keep track of every album or piece you’re hearing for the first time. At the end of the year, you’ll have a log of how deeply and widely you explored in the year!